These 49 Rutgers Employees Are Paid More Than The University President

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ—As of September 1, the soon-to-be-retired Rutgers President was only the 50th highest-paid university employee so far this year.

With a salary of $726,464, Dr. Robert “Bob” Barchi is paid almost twice as much as the President of the United States and more than four times the Governor of New Jersey.

Most of the 49 staffers paid more than President Barchi are, like him, medical doctors. Barchi is also paid less than the school’s football coach and two basketball coaches, even though the school’s athletics program loses money.

A neurologist and head of a medical school in Philadelphia, Barchi was brought in to oversee the combination of Rutgers with the University of Medicine & Dentistry, among the largest mergers of its kind in the history of American higher education.

Now, almost all of the highest-paid people at Rutgers come from within the leadership of two medical institutions: New Jersey Medical School (NJMS) in Newark and Robert Wood Johnson (RWJ) Medical School in Piscataway.

Three others in the top 50 hail from Rutgers’ Cancer Institute of New Jersey (CINJ) in New Brunswick.

President Robert “Bob” Barchi

Barchi recently announced he is leaving the presidency and his retirement would be effective next summer, a move that has sparked some looks back at his legacy.

No doubt he leaves behind a university with a much larger payroll and a much larger budget, now more than $4 billion per year thanks to that merger and a series of athletics setbacks.

Football coach Christopher Ash, whose team has struggled in every season he has led them, has been paid $1,654,182 for his services this year, reflecting a compensation contract that includes a base salary of $550,000.

Meanwhile, Women’s Basketball Coach C. Vivian Stringer has been paid $732,348 so far this year, despite not having coached in an official game since February 18 due to health problems.

Dr. Robert Heary, M.D.

But the top earner on the Rutgers payroll so far this year is Dr. Robert Heary, who serves as the Director of the Center for Spine Surgery & Mobility at NJMS in Newark.

Heary, who has been with the school since 1995, is listed as having a $239,560 annual salary, only the 713th-highest in the records provided to us by Rutgers.

Somehow, though, Heary’s compensation as of September 1 is listed at a whopping $1,777,259, making him the only Rutgers employee to collect more than the football coach.

Below are all employees who were paid at least $500,000 by Rutgers since January 1:

Excluding employees of the university’s medical schools, the next highest paychecks so far this year went to Rutgers-Newark Chancellor Nancy Cantor ($466,371), the football team’s Offensive Coordinator and Quarterbacks Coach John McNulty ($459,442), and Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Patrick Hobbs ($445,875).

Charlie is the founder and editor of New Brunswick Today, and the winner of the Awbrey Award for Community-Oriented Local Journalism. He is a proud Rutgers University journalism graduate and a community organizer, and was an independent candidate for Mayor of New Brunswick in 2018.

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